Electronic Sound Magazine

10 January 2019

In our Moogtastic new issue we take a look at how Dr Bob’s famous early machines defined the sound of the 1970s. The tale of how Moog took hold in the States has been well told on our pages via the adventures of Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause, less known is the story of the British invasion. In our cover feature, we meet Mike Vickers, formerly of Manfred Mann, the proud owner of one of the first Moog IIIC’s to arrive on UK shores. Vickers was hired by The Beatles to help with the making of ‘Abbey Road’ following which the synth genie was well and truly out of the bottle. Elsewhere in our cover feature, we examine the influence of Moog and chart the under-the-radar connections that shaped the sound world of an entire generation. We take a trip from those first Moog adventures with Mike Vickers as our guide, we talk to KPM composers Alan Hawkshaw and Brian Bennett about the heyday of library music and discuss the lasting legacy of their work with Matt Berry who celebrates the classic TV theme tune. We meet Sheffield’s rather excellent International Teachers Of Pop, who does what their name promises, we tell the unheard story of Scottish synthpop almost-rans Secession and catch up with the trailblazing Ultramarine as they prepare to release an excellent new album. More? You’ll find Stephen Mallinder telling us the tale behind Cabaret Voltaire’s epic ‘Nag Nag Nag’, Hacienda legend Graeme Park talks us through some of his favourite things in Under The Influence and we relive the birth of Pan Sonic in a Brixton backstreet club in the early 1990s in Time Machine. We start the year as we mean to go on by packing our Back section with reviews of the essential releases coming your way this month and filling up our Front section with all manner of synths, hi-fi, books, toys, gadgets and events that’ll have you wondering how we do it. How do we do it? That would be telling.